Don't turn out the lights now
by x.xOracles.Shadowx.x
Summary: AU - What Jaime Lannister wants, he gets. What he wants is his best friend back. Now if only Brienne would realize that. - JaimeBrienne, with some RenlyLoras thrown in. Adult characters are in university, and Loras is kind of a jerk. T for language.


**AN: Hi! So, this is my first ASoIaF fanfic, which is bizarre because I've been in love with the books for the last two years. This idea popped into my head when I was writing a paper (which I still have to finish, and it's due tomorrow. Eeep.), and wouldn't leave me alone until it was written. The title is completely random, it's just the title of the song I was listening to as I wrote this piece. In this particular piece, it will be AU, and there will be none of the younger generation character. It'll be strictly Jaime, Brienne, Cersei, Robert, Ned, Catelyn, Renly and Loras. I know Loras is a really young character, but for this, all of the characters will be in their 20s and in university at King's Landing University. **

**It's a short piece, just something to feed my love of Brienne/Jaime, but I enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoy reading it. There is mention of Cersei/Jaime, and the Renly/Loras relationship, as well as Jaime's snarky opinion on the relationship between Ned and Robert, but on the whole, it's all about JaimeBrienne. And some Cersei bashing, and I'm sorry for that if it offends you, but I really can't stand her character. She kind of makes my skin crawl. It's meant to kind of be mainly friendship, but the romance is there if you look for it.**

**If you recognize it, I don't own it, so please don't sue me. **

**Enjoy! **

When Jaime Lannister wanted something, there wasn't a force on Earth that could stop him. Why he wanted Brienne Tarth, the antithesis of everything that was Jaime's twin sister Cersei, was beyond him, but when he woke up one morning and realized he had every intention of making his sister's arch enemy his, he just accepted it for what it was and started thinking of a plan to make it happen.

First, he did some recon. With his sidekick Ilyn Payne, he did what some law enforcement officials would loosely term as stalking. He spent the day following Brienne around, and found out that that Brienne had one half-brother Podrick, who, as it turned out, was a cousin of Ilyn on his mother's side (Small world.) , and was very close with the Starks.

That caused Jaime a little bit of despair; the Starks were the family of the best friend of his sister's boorish boyfriend, Robert Baratheon. Well, her apparent boyfriend. Jaime sometimes wondered if there wasn't something going on between Ned Stark and Robert. Robert could be drunk out of his mind, unconscious on the floor, but if you said Ned Stark's name loud enough, he would be awake faster than you could say lightning. And heaven help the poor bastard who said the names Lyanna or Rhaegar around him. The last sap had been carried to the hospital in a stretcher.

So, if it came out that there had been some torrid affair between Robert and Ned before Cersei and Catelyn, Jaime, quite frankly, would just say he saw it coming.

But Brienne, she was a puzzle. He still couldn't figure out exactly what drew him to her – They'd been the best of friends as children until Cersei found out and got in the way. Since then, they'd said not a word to each other outside of congratulations for their respective victories in sports – Brienne in track and field, and Jaime in everything else. After sitting in on the party to celebrate her getting accepted into the first string on the track team, Jaime caught up with her and they'd had their first full conversation in over three years.

When Cersei heard about it from her little toy Taena Merryweather, she'd been spitting venom for a week, but calmed after he promised he'd stay away from Brienne. Since then, their brother Tyrion had been making wagers with everyone he knew about how long it would take for him to break that promise and talk to Brienne. Jaime kind of hated his brother for that, but knew it was true. It had been a constant thought of his, reconnecting with the girl who'd been his best friend. It took him a while to admit it, but he missed having someone to talk to in school other than his arguably sociopathic sister. He loved Cersei – admittedly, probably a little too much by some standards, but he was determined to put that sick episode behind him – but he wanted friends outside of her and her social circles.

It just so happened that his mind chose Brienne to be the friend in question, and while Jaime supported the choice, it left him in kind of an awkward position. As far as Brienne knew, their friendship had gone the way of the dinosaurs, and Cersei's constant leering didn't help. He needed a plan to get Brienne back into his life, and it had to be a good one: Brienne Tarth was not a woman who responded well to being randomly chased.

After classes that day, Jaime sent Cersei home without him, saying he was going to do some time in the gym to make up for the weekend off he'd given himself. After doing ten laps in the pool, he got bored, dressed and began pacing around the school.

When he reached the third floor, he heard raised voices. One of them, he noted, sounded disturbingly like Loras Tyrell, a kid a few years younger than Jaime, but with more arrogance than even Jaime could muster. Loras was known as the school pretty boy, the boy who tried to compete with Ned Stark for Golden Boy of King's Landing and failed. He was also in some form of relationship with Renly Baratheon, Robert's brother. They thought it was a secret, but everyone knew it. They weren't particularly subtle, and the fact that Renly hadn't dated anyone after he and Loras' sister Maergery broke up didn't help much.

Another voice replied, and Jaime glanced up as he walked towards the voices. That was Brienne, or Jaime was deaf. Jaime walked quickly towards the voices and when he peeked around the corner, he saw Renly, Loras and Brienne standing in a semi-circle in the middle of the hall. Jaime was bothered to see that Brienne looked positively wounded, and he wanted nothing more than to punch Loras in the face , just to get rid of the smug smirk he wore as he observed Brienne's pain.

Renly, at least, looked apologetic and genuinely upset. Renly was an alright guy as far as Jaime was concerned, a little too carefree to be taken entirely serious, but he cared about his team and he wasn't cruel if he could help it. As decent a guy as he was, Jaime was sure he could have picked a better boyfriend than Loras.

"Brienne, I'm sorry but I've made my choice. Loras is the better runner, he gets first spot.", Renly was explaining, and Jaime wanted to shout, 'Bullshit!' Jaime had seen their practices – Brienne could run circles around Loras on a bad day, and anyone with eyes and half of a brain knew that. Someone needed to tell Renly about a concept called 'favoritism' and how it was generally looked down on in most social circles.

Brienne looked crushed, and Jaime wanted to hit Robert's brother for putting that expression on her face. It was old news around King's, but Brienne had been head over heels for Renly since she was thirteen. She got into the habit of running laps at the school after classes, and met Renly one day after practice. He saw she was talented and offered to coach her for her try outs for the team in freshman year. Renly never commented on it either way, but once Loras caught word of it, he made Brienne's life a misery. They'd still been friends at the time, and that was the first and last time Jaime had ever bare knuckle punched someone. While he found the whole practice distasteful, he did enjoy the memory of Loras' nose breaking under his hand. That event, he remembered, had been the catalyst for Cersei's vendetta against Brienne, but he didn't want to think about that just then.

"I understand. Second string captain it is?", Brienne asked, disappointment in her every word. Loras sneered at her but stayed silent. If they walked towards him, Jaime decided, he would arrange an accident for the young Tyrell. 'Let's see how pretty Renly thinks he is after he takes a tumble down the stairs at the end of the hall. '

"Yes. I know you won't let me down, Brienne." Renly clearly knew he was hurting her and was trying to soften the blow, which Jaime supposed he could appreciate. If he'd been Renly, though, Loras would have met an unfortunate accident the second he opened his mouth. The sex could NOT be good enough to be worth putting up with a boy like Loras, Jaime wouldn't believe it.

If he'd been Renly, Jaime thought, he'd spend every day making Brienne smile, and to hell with Loras Tyrell. While she wasn't a beauty by any stretch of the imagination, Brienne had eyes that could light up a room when she smiled. Unfortunately, thanks to Cersei and Loras, that smile rarely saw the light of day.

"I would never. Thank you for the chance, Renly. You won't regret it.", Brienne promised him, and Jaime knew she meant it. Brienne took her promises very seriously; it would take her literally being on death's door for her to break a promise. Jaime could remember the day after his mother died. He'd stayed home from school because he couldn't face the thought of going into the outside world that day. He and Brienne hadn't spoken for over a year by that point, but Brienne dropped a note off at the house with her cell phone number and an offer for him to call her if he needed to talk.

It took him an hour to muster up the courage to call, but he'd spent an hour and a half on the phone with her in tears. She swore she would never tell anyone, and to that day, she hadn't breathed a word of his breakdown. Even though, Jaime reasoned, she had every reason, to in light of the hell Cersei put her through. If she wanted to take a shot at Cersei, she had the perfect ammo in what she had on Jaime, but she never used it.

However, that may have had something to do with the fact that, when Brienne's father was in the hospital, he'd spent every waking moment at her side in the hospital. She hadn't even needed to ask - When he learned of her father's heart attack, he'd got in his car and drove down, bringing coffee and a get well card for her father. Brienne had spent most of the night silent beside him, but he caught the few tears she let slip and said nothing about it.

"You deserve it, Brienne. You'll make a great captain one day.", Renly told her, then said, "Come on, Loras. I promised you a ride home after practice, didn't I?"

"You may have mentioned something like that.", Loras answered, grinning at him. Jaime frowned. Tactlessness, thy names were Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell, he thought. "Do you want to get the car started? I need to grab my coat from the lab."

Renly must have been as dumb as a stick because even at the other end of the hall Jaime could see the coat draped over the bag Jaime knew was Loras', because he nodded then said good night to Brienne and headed towards the elevator at the other end of the hall. Once the doors closed, Loras rounded on Brienne, and Jaime had a bad feeling about this.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?", Loras asked her.

"What do you mean?", Brienne asked.

"Renly isn't interested in you, Brienne. Get it through your thick, ugly head. He lets you back on the team every year because he feels sorry for you, but if he didn't, you wouldn't stand a chance. Get over it and move on.", Loras barked at her, and Jaime felt his temper slowly rise.

"Renly lets me back on the team because I'm one of the best runners in this school, and you both know that. There's no pity involved; Renly is too good a man for that.", Brienne snapped back. Jaime sighed. That was one of Brienne's few downfalls; she saw the good in everyone, even when there was no good to be had. Renly Baratheon may've been an alright guy, but he was light years away from being a good man as far as Jaime was concerned.

"You really believe that, don't you?", Loras laughed. "Brienne, you're a smart girl, but you've got nothing that Renly wants. Do yourself a favor and move on, save yourself the hurt."

"My wanting to be on the team has nothing to do with Renly." Brienne's face was stained with red, but her words sounded honest to Jaime's ears. "I just know that I could do wonders with the team, and that some change would do us good."

There was nothing confrontational in her voice or her tone, but Loras' face turned pale with fury. He stepped right up to Brienne, and Jaime couldn't stop the absurd smirk that crossed his face when he realized that Brienne towered over Loras. But, so did he, and Brienne had been as tall as him since she was fourteen.

"You will never be captain of the team.", Loras hissed, then turned on his heel. He picked up the bag and coat from the floor (Renly. Dumb as a stick. Jaime was certain of it.), and walked towards Jaime. From Brienne's expression, she could see him waiting in the shadows, but Loras was blind. Jaime just smirked in the darkness and before Brienne could open her mouth to warn Loras (because as much of an ass as he was, Brienne was far too kind to let someone get hurt if she could help it), Jaime stuck his foot out and waited a breath.

He was not disappointed – Loras went face first to the ground, his belongings scattering across the floor. He pushed his hair from his face and looked up at Jaime, who stepped out from the shadows and smirked at him.

"You ought to be careful, Loras. Don't want Renly's little rose to get injured before the big track meet. After all, the whole school's depending on you to win the medal if Brienne can't.", Jaime told him carelessly, stepping over him but taking special care to step on his hand.

"You bastard! You tripped me!", Loras accused, and Jaime had no decency in his response. He shrugged.

"First, my parents were married when my sister and I were born, thank you very much. And second, I would never do something as dastardly as that. I'm hurt you would accuse me of such, Loras.", Jaime told him.

"You'd do that and worse, you son of a bitch." That was all the prompting Jaime needed.

If anyone asked, he hit Loras and gave him a broken cheek bone because he insulted his mother, and Jaime was content to let that be the reason. No one needed to know that he socked Loras right in the eye because of what he'd said to Brienne, because of how badly he and Renly had upset her.

When Renly carried Loras out to the car, glaring at Jaime the entire way, Jaime turned back to Brienne. Even though she was still hurt, there was humor shining in her eyes, and that look was worth the disdain of the school sports leader, as well as his boytoy.

"Was that really necessary, Jaime?", Brienne sighed, sounding like she wasn't at all surprised.

"I've no idea what you're talking about. Shouldn't you be on your way home?", Jaime asked.

Brienne just shook her head and smiled at him. "I should. Walk me to my car?"

"Of course. What kind of knight would I be if I let a lady walk unaccompanied to her car?", Jaime asked, tossing her her coat and watching as she caught it in mid-air. Brienne snorted at being called a lady, but walked quietly next to him through the halls.

When they stood by Brienne's blue car, she turned to Jaime with an amused look on her face. Jaime arched his brow, but said nothing and waited for her to speak. She laughed, then said, "So, can I expect you and Ilyn to be my shadows again tomorrow?"

Jaime gulped, but resorted to his tried and true stand by – Deny, deny, deny! "What in the seven hells are you talking about, Brienne? I've better things to do than be your shadow, I promise you."

Brienne just laughed again, and it made Jaime's heart do a funny leap in his chest. "Alright, Lannister, have it your way, as usual.", Brienne told him, smiling at him. "But, if you do happen to be going my way again tomorrow, you might as well come talk to me. " A strange look crossed her face, and she said quietly, "I have missed you, Jaime. I want us to be friends again."

Jaime felt the words stick in his throat, but he heard his voice reply, "I want that too, Brienne. If I happen to be in the area, I'll stop in and say hello." Cersei couldn't snap at him for a coincidental meeting, they did go to the same school after all.

Brienne's smile was the brightest thing in the parking lot, and Jaime felt himself smile back. "Sounds good. Well, I need to get home or my father will start to wonder where I am. Good night, Jaime."

"Yes, get on home. Young women shouldn't be out this late at night, not even women like you.", Jaime teased. He knew Brienne was a tomboy and took pride in that fact, so he'd turned it into a kind of joke between them when they were children. Brienne seemed to remember that and laughed.

"Shut up, you. I'll see you tomorrow." It was a statement, not a question, and Jaime knew that he would indeed be seeing Brienne Tarth tomorrow and, Gods willing, every day after that.

"Indeed you will. Good night, Brienne."

Jaime turned and walked to his car. He waited until Brienne had left the parking lot before going home, and if he happened to take most of the same route as she did to make sure she got home alright, well, who could blame him? After years apart, he had a shot at getting his old friend back, and, if he played his cards right, maybe someday he would be the lucky man who got to be a part of Brienne's world.

**AN: That's it. Questions, comments, concerns? Let me know. I have another AU story in the works for this, which I'm very excited about, and once my workload dies down a little bit, I plan on delving into book-universe stories.**

**Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. =) Have a great night, guys!**

**Much love,  
>Oracle. <strong>


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